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Most online shoppers favor paying sales taxes when they check out, rather than later on their income taxes

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Seventy-eight percent of consumers polled said they would prefer paying state sales tax on online purchases from sellers like Amazon.com than have to keep track of and pay them later on their income tax forms. In this photo, workers at an Amazon fulfillment warehouse in Phoenix readied containers for Cyber Monday in 2012, the Monday after Black Friday and often one of the busiest online shopping days of the year.
(AP File)

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- More than three-quarters of online shoppers would prefer paying state sales taxes on their purchases when they check out online rather than when they file their income taxes, according to a new poll from the International Council of Shopping Centers released Tuesday.

And among Ohioans surveyed, 82 percent said they would prefer to pay online sales taxes at the point of purchase rather than have to remit them later via special forms or their income taxes.

Of course, the current government shutdown means that all pending legislation is on hold until Congress reconvenes. But supporters of the Marketplace Fairness Act point out that the Senate version of the bill passed 69-27 in May (with both Ohio senators voting "Yea") and that momentum for enacting a uniform online sales tax was building in the House of Representatives. They fully expect it to resume after the stalemate is resolved.

That's crucial, because a similar proposal introduced in 2011 died before it passed.

View full sizeOhioans last year clicked on Amazon.com more than online sites for bricks-and-mortar store sites like Walmart, Toys 'R Us, JCPenney and Target.Reid Brown, The Plain Dealer

The way it works now, online sellers like Amazon.com and eBay can avoid charging sales tax in states like Ohio where they don't have any stores or warehouses. That's because of a landmark Supreme Court ruling called Quill Corp. v. North Dakota, issued in response to the perceived difficulty stores would have complying with the tax codes across 45 states
and 7,600 local taxing districts.

Proponents of e-fairness point out that that decision was handed down in 1992, long before retailers went online, and that it doesn't reflect how consumers shop today. Amazon.com, the world's largest online seller, charges sales tax in nine states but has said it would prefer a federal law that applies to everyone nationwide.

Ebay Inc., however, objects to the current version of the Marketplace Fairness bill, saying that collecting online sales taxes hurts small businesses.

And even though consumers are required by Ohio tax law to keep track of and remit state sales tax on whatever they buy online, less than 1 percent of taxpayers do.

ICSC says 78 percent of those surveyed said "it would be easier to pay state sales or use tax on online purchases at the time of purchase," rather than keep track of purchases on their own and pay the tax owed on their income taxes. That's 3 percentage points higher than a similar poll conducted last October. Moreover, 64 percent of consumers -- up 23 percentage points since 2012 -- said they were aware of laws requiring them to pay state sales or "use tax" on what they buy online when they file their state income taxes. In Ohio, only 60 percent of those polled said they knew they were supposed to pay sales taxes for online purchases.

And 64 percent of those polled said they support federal laws requiring online-only sellers to collect sales tax at point-of-purchase, up 5 percentage points from last year. That lines up with the 65 percent of Ohioans who think so, although another 26 percent disagree.

"Americans increasingly recognize that this is not a new tax," Michael Kercheval, ICSC president and chief executive said in a statement. "The results of this poll demonstrate that consumers want a sales tax system that supports their retail habits and gives brick-and-mortar merchants a chance to compete on a level playing field."

The International Council of Shopping Centers is the global trade association of of the shopping center industry, with more than 60,000 members in more than 90 countries.

Betsy Laird, senior vice president of global public policy, said in a statement that "Brick-and-mortar merchants want the government to stop picking winners and losers to that all retailers can provide customers with the shopping experience they have come to expect.

"It is abundantly clear that consumers support a modernized and streamlined sales tax policy that keeps current with the realities of the 21st-century marketplace," she said.

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